MSI could ride the ATI pony

One industry guru said to me then: "If MSI does it everybody will."

Is this the dawning of the Age of Aquarius in the graphics business, we wonder.

Microstar (MSI) still does not have an official statement about rumours it will make a heap of ATI cards for Medion, one of the German colossues that bestrides Europe.

But MSI will make Radeon 9600 aka RV350 and 9500 cards for ATI, but won't sell them in retail and is still committed to Nvidia.

Right now MSI won't sell Radeons in their own boxes, but this can change as swiftly as the weather at SnoBIT.

Some formerly loyal Nvidia partners are making ATI cards for specific regions. Creative Labs, for instance, has Radeons that are made exclusively for the Asian market.

MSI is company that makes and sells over million cards per months and it's certainly a strong partner for anybody that does business with it. Nvidia would like to keep it for itself because of branding and the long standing tradition, but ATI thinks MSI should be bold.

Here is a possible scenario that has rattled in our Bosnian head for quite some time and it has a lot to do with Intel and AMD positions when the first Athlon dawned.

MSI could be very brave, and announce that it will start making and selling ATI cards under its brand because of the "overall situation". All Nvidia partners are aware that the Radeon 9800 Pro will beat the Geforce FX 5800 Ultra and if they are not they will be in a short while.

Now MSI can make its move and because of the situation, exigencies of the market, blah blah blah, it can start making ATI cards.

What Nvidia is afraid of is that many other partners could follow that move and it would directly hurt Nvidia sales since all exclusive contracts would fall off the NVDA twigs a little like leaves on a deciduous tree.

But then ATI partners would start being able to make Nvidia based cards.

And this would get the graphic card industry to a stage where the motherboard vendors are now. Manufacturers can make as much AMD or Intel motherboards as they will. But only a few years back, only the lion-hearted dared to make Athlon mobos and concealed them under a bushel, otherwise known as a white box, for fear of the Revenge of Chipzilla.

That's when we can start talking about real competition in the graphics market. µ